Silence
by Salomedancing
Summary: Hook's victory has not quite the result he had expected. Darkfic. Character death. AU


Disclaimer: Everything belings to J. M. Barrie

AN: Japanpeterpan is to be thanked for beta-reading.

They were his dogs snapping at him, but, tragic figure though he had become, he scarcely heeded them. Against such fearful evidence it was not their belief in him that he needed, it was his own. He felt his ego slipping from him. "Don't desert me, bully," he whispered hoarsely to it.

But it was not easy when he thought of the man he had become. He, the only man Barbecue had feared, what was he now? A slayer of children, as stuck on a nightmarish island, as he was before Pan died. It seemed that with the boy and his silly happy thoughts gone, everything in Neverland had started to decay. Everything grew mouldy. The silver goblet that Hook drank his wine from was tarnished black. The wine tasted stale, and however carefully his meal were prepared, the food had a faint taste of rot. And Hook could not leave. For a long time he set sail every morning, only to see the island materialise in the water by nightfall. Whatever Hook did, he could not break the circle that brought him back, over and over again.

Who would have thought that Pan was so easy to kill, once Hook had the upper hand? The boy broke, far too easily, and way too early- long before Hook had grown tired. He stared down at the lifeless body, disappointment burning through him. He fought back an impulse to mutilate the corpse, and instead he gave orders to have his enemy buried in the sandy earth, close to the shore. An honour Hook did not feel the need for when it came to the rest of the boys. Their bodies lay where they had fallen, free for any preying animal.

The girl... He took her with him back to the ship, in an effort to make her pay for what he still felt Pan owed him. She never said a word again, never uttering the smallest sound, the sight of the slaughter of her brothers and friends struck her mute. Still she never stopped screaming. Hook heard her in his mind, and in the end he couldn't stand it anymore, and cut her throat to silence her. He threw the body in the sea, weighed down with heavy chains, and she disappeared in the dark water, and there was finally a blessed silence.

That night he dreamt about her, how she stood by his bed, silent and still, though her hair made lazy movement around her head, as if it was moved by underwater streams. She was standing there, so pale that the moonlight shone through her, and looked at him, through him, with empty eyes. He could clearly see the jagged cut over her throat, though there was no blood now, only the gaping wound.

"Go away," he whispered, his voice hoarse from a fear he didn't want to acknowledge.

She did not answer. The moon went behind a cloud, and she faded away, only to return the next night, and the next. At first only in his dreams, but then he saw her when he was awake, in the darkness of his cabin as well as in the daylight on the deck. Wherever he went on his ship she was there, never speaking, but he could feel the accusation in her gaze.

He gave up and returned to the island, though he loathed to step ashore. It was a relief first, to be able to walk without the pale shape of her following him. The relief lasted until he became aware of the dark gestalt in the shadows. It followed him without a sound, and he could not make out its shape. At first it just made him walk faster, but after almost breaking into a run he stopped. He was not a coward after all. So he turned to face whatever it was that followed him.

When he stared into the darkness, the shadow grew denser, getting a shape, and then Pan stood underneath a big tree, staring at him as silently as Wendy. Despite the darkness Hook could make out the even darker patches on the boy's body- the bruises that had had time to form on his body before he died. Hook ran then. Ran until he could feel the taste of blood in his mouth, well aware that his shadow companion was close behind him all the time.

On the shore he stopped. He could not return to the ship. He could not stay on the island. There was nowhere else to go. Hook watched his men waiting for him in the long boat. They looked grey and misshapen, and it struck him that they might be dead was well. He had killed so many of them after all, but the number of the crew never seemed to diminish. Was he then the only man left alive here? It was a notion that held a feeling of truth, filled with horror as it was.

His eyes were caught by his hook. Alone, in this rotting world, the steel had not rusted. His hook gleaned as sharply as always. Was this then the answer? The way out? Slowly he lifted his arm, feeling the cold metal press into his own skin. One movement and it would be over, and what would be left of Captain James Hook would be a corpse, devoured by the island. Still he could not bring himself to this last act. Another thought struck his mind, and that one was even more dreadful than the last. The question forming in his head was one that that he really didn't want to know the answer to.

What was it that said he was the only living left, after all?

End.


End file.
